The Ghost of You
by Red Dead Wedding
Summary: The world waits for the rise of a new dawn. The truth is buried under a virus older than time. The cradle of civilization. Progenitor. Eve. Beginnings. And the face of a man she'd buried trying to stop it all. Failure comes in many forms - and she'll stop at nothing to set it right. (Part 2 of the Eve of Destruction saga).
1. Chapter 1

**The Ghost of You**

* * *

**Chapter One:**

**The Face of a Stranger**

* * *

**February 2016–**

**The Black Forest-**

**Germany**

* * *

The snow crunched delicately under his boots. His hands curled around the pistol as his back slid against the inert stone. His breath puffed out in a cloud of white. The moonlight struck silver over the beard on his face.

He listened to the sounds of the other people around the bend in the wide hallway. The column hid him. He'd lost weight. He didn't need to get on a damn scale to know that. Loose in his cell, he'd done his best to keep in shape, but he was limited without free weights. He'd lost muscle.

He hadn't lost his mind.

He was still **Leon Kennedy**.

The voices were muffled. The language was English. Probably. Where was he? The architecture suggested a castle. These bad guys and their goddamn castles. The European countryside was littered with them. Most of them were privately owned and maintained. It made life hard when you wanted to infiltrate one, because like it or not, a castle was hard as hell to impregnate. Why couldn't they do their business in a trailer? Or a condo with a nice swimming pool?

He waited as the snow trickled down over his nose. He heard the male voice fade. He heard the steps retreat.

The others came toward him. The female, clearly. He could take her. Even if she was as big as a house, he could take her. He was ready. He was eager for it. A good fight would stimulate his blood again. The dead guard had been cake. Too easy. They never cuffed him. They should have cuffed him. They fed him through a slot on the door.

Until today.

Why?

He didn't care.

He was loose. He'd killed that one guard the second the door had opened. A kick from the hip and the wet sound of a neck breaking had accompanied him from the cell. He'd taken the gun, he'd taken the boots and the coat. He'd ponytail his long hair back with a shoelace. It was long enough to tickle the back of his neck and made a stubby tail. Pieces shook loose to frame his face.

He was done here.

He was going _home._

How long?

How long had he been here?

It felt like a hundred years. Could have been months. Might have been worse than that.

Either way? He was on the run now. He was churning with rage and revenge. Whoever had taken him was dead where they stood, they just didn't know it yet.

He watched the little light bob near his left boot as the guard approached. Slow. No hurry apparently. _Hurry up, you son of a bitch, your end is nigh._

The gun appeared at his left shoulder barrel first. The time was now.

He grabbed the barrel and jerked. The person attached to the gun gasped and was yanked forward. His shoulder rolled up and under the arm. He hip-checked them and rolled them over his back. The girl went up and over, reversed, and grappled for the gun before Leon foot swept her.

A girl. He'd been right about that. Maybe blonde by the silvery moonlight in her hair sticking out the ugly black sock cap she wore. In a white parka over skinny jeans and boots. Not exactly typical guard wear. It didn't matter.

She nearly went down and stumbled into the column. She lost the gun to him to avoid the elbow he threw at her face. He turned it on her and she spun a roundhouse at him. The kick was smooth and showed skill.

It caught his wrist and sent the gun spinning into the dark. That was fine, he had his tucked into the back of his pants anyway. But she was still small. And easily overpowered. Leon jerked on her leg and threw her to the floor.

He turned around to kick her from the hip and she beat him to it, hard, in the back of his right knee from her place on the floor. Impressed, he didn't even see it coming.

The leg collapsed and spilled him forward. He went down on the table beside the column, taking it with him. The cup there overturned, spilling down his face and chest as he stayed there, on all fours, on the ground in the mess of broken wood and water. _He was weaker than he should have been_. It angered him. It felt like fire and wrath in his blood.

The glass of the cup had shattered and cut him.

The red seeping wound from his cut hand added its colorful nature to the running liquid and snow. He felt something begin to rip away at that moment, felt something shift and churn inside him. The sight of his spilled blood opened some door inside his head he hadn't known was there.

Her voice filtered through the dark, shivering with shock, "...you're alright- I mean..shit, _are you_? Are you alright? Are you hurt?"

He felt her hands on his arm and heard her say, "Mr. Kennedy? I'm not here to hurt you." What did her voice shake like that over his name? What was with the mister?

She touched his mouth with the tips of her fingers. Something shivered in his guts and surprised him. What was it? Recognition? It sent his internal alarms on high alert. She whispered, "...geezus...it's _impossible._ I don't know why...but I think some part of me never really thought it was true."

_What did that mean?_

Her voice hitched as she murmured, "...oh, _Leon..."_

She pressed her forehead to his with some sound like a whimper. _Who in the hell was this girl?_

She vibrated like she wanted...what? To hug him? Her face was all soft and sad somehow. He had a strong urge to tilt his head to her and let her kiss him. Apparently, he'd lost weight _and _his goddamn mind in captivity.

She was trying to help him stand. Her hand shifted tremulously from his arm. It touched the beard on his face. Her eyes were glistening with unshed tears. Her breath hitched. Why? Who was she? It didn't matter.

_She was the enemy._

The door in his head cracked a little farther open. He turned and his arm came up, up, and he felt his fist slam quick, hard, and furious into her stomach. He watched her expression collapse in pain as she bent double and stumbled back from him.

Fury lanced across her face. "You bastard!"

"Me? You kicked a man from behind. Like a coward."

"I'll show you a coward!"

She came at him, smooth and fast. He blocked the spinning roundhouse and she dodged the straight-armed jab he threw at her. He drove her back with a flurry of jabs; she resisted with an answer of kicks and blocks. She wasn't trying to hit him. Why?!

He shouted, "Stop _trying _to avoid hitting me and _hit me_!"

He tried to foot sweep her and she leaped over it. Her hands caught his arm, yanked it up behind his back and he turned, agilely, breaking the hold.

He reversed it, wrapping his other arm around her neck. He jerked her arm just hard enough to have her gasp, putting her hand between her shoulder blades.

"Don't make me break it."

"You wouldn't."

He squeezed his forearm over her throat to threaten. "You kidding? I could choke you out."

"You wouldn't do that either."

What the hell did that mean?

He let her go, roughly and pushed her hard away from him.

Leon commanded her, "Remember who the hell let go of whom."

She stumbled and reversed. Her eyes flashed under that unflattering sock hat she was wearing, "You kidding? I might be a coward, but you're a pansy."

"What did you say?"

"Afraid to hurt a girl, are you? What a joke. You started this dance, _sir,_ I'm just finishing it. You want me to hit you!? I'm _dying _to! I'd like to wipe the floor with your stupid _face!"_

He knew why he was so angry. Why was she?

_Who the hell was she?_

Was she trying to kill him? The rage in his head was showering him in confusion. He was frustrated because he was tired, he was hungry, he was trapped in some god forsaken castle in who the hell knew where. He'd found only one guard to kill to take the edge off.

And this girl.

He swung at her and she knocked his arm aside while following through with a short arm jab to the solar plexus. Hard. She was done trying to give him a chance to retreat. She hurt him. It hit and stole his breath. Before he could counter she added an uppercut. It connected with his chin and the stars burst hot white and red across his vision. Something broke in this room, something in her shifted, and she suddenly had the advantage.

He made a grab for her and came up empty-handed. She didn't let it go, nope. She added insult to injury. She slapped his face once, twice, three times and they were hard, ringing slaps worthy of any scorned woman in the world.

He might have let it go, maybe, but she did something insufferable…she laughed.

The door in his head collapsed, smashed down in a wave of something wet, thick, and made of wrath. He felt the last vestiges of his control disappear, eroded and raped away by the darkness that boiled in the bottom of his guts…and the hunger that powered it.

She went to slap him again and he caught her hand, effortlessly. She lifted a brow in surprise and he slapped her, once, twice. Front hand, backhand, still holding her arm.

She jerked against him. "Bast-!" And he slapped her again, front hand, backhand.

"What? I shouldn't hit girls?! You started this one, sweetheart, so let's finish it."

The fury on her face was like wildfire in his blood.

Leon jerked her forward by her imprisoned arm, so hard she stumbled and landed against his front. He jerked her arm up behind her back to pin her against him.

Her mouth was bleeding a little. He hadn't pulled the slaps. They'd been hard and meaningful. Hers had done the same as he turned his head to the side and spit blood on the floor.

He told her, "Stop -or I will put you down."

She spit the blood in his face. "I hope you choke on it...you're not a pansy, you're a bully."

His arms caught at her waist. He jerked her up and over to suplex her. His head was confused. He was confused. He was drowning. She was the enemy. She was there to kill him.

Right?

_Right?_

His back arched to crush her skull on the ground. Someone shouted his name, "_Leon!"_

Who was shouting? Was it his sanity? Was he a man who crushed a woman on the stones who'd been trying to _resist _hurting him? He didn't know what the hell was happening to him. He was present enough to acknowledge something was wrong with him.

But he'd underestimated her.

Her arms hooked around his knees and surprised him. Her legs scissored around his neck and head. He thought - _I'll be damned- a_nd she slung him out and away with a deft flick of her hips and arch of her back.

It was a good move. It was the right one. He'd used it a thousand times when someone had managed to get ahold of him. Leon went up, he flipped over as she'd intended, he rolled through it, grabbed for the gun on his back and came up on one knee aiming.

She already had a small pistol aimed at him. A spare piece, clearly, she must have drawn from the ankle. They stared at each other panting.

He instructed, harshly, "Put it down or I'll make you a pirate."

Her brows winged up as he explained, "I'll leave you waiting for your eye patch, honey. Keep coming at me, I'll shiver your timbers."

Her eyes narrowed, "Don't. Don't you dare."

"What? Shoot you?" He taunted snidely.

"No...don't make jokes. You have no right." The rage in her voice was laced with something like grief. It confused him even more. She was angrier at him for the bad humor than she'd been for the fighting. Why?

_Who was this girl? _How many times would he ask himself that question?

"You must not know me very well if you think I don't make jokes, sweetheart. I spit out corny dialogue like a bad video game."

Something strange happened. Some kind of emotion streaked across her face. The barrel of her gun stayed steady. "You're right about that. I don't know _you _at all."

Leon shook his head, "I'll let you run -if you go now. Run. I promise you -I don't miss."

"Neither do I."

His eyes narrowed, "Damn it, you're gonna get yourself killed here. Drop it and go, you're not good enough to win this way."

And now she laughed, harshly, "Yeah, I am. You bet your ass I am. You made sure of that."

What?

He shook his head. "I don't understand that. What the hell does that mean?"

She took a harsh breath, "Lower your weapon, Agent Kennedy. I'm here to rescue you. That's what that means. Stop trying to kill me."

Leon hesitated again. His gun lowered an inch, popped back up, lowered again. Finally, he instructed, "Remove the fucking hat."

She winced. Why? His language? He'd developed a nice repertoire of potty mouth since he'd woken up in a cell. Apparently, she was offended. He wasn't sure why he felt the strangest urge to apologize.

Annoyed, she jerked the sock cap off and tossed it into the snow. Blonde hair tumbled down to her shoulders and shagged into one eye. A loosely plaited braid spilled down over her shoulder. Very blonde. She was close to white blonde for her hair to light up like that in the moonlight. He might have been weak. He might have been off his game.

But it didn't change the photographic memory.

It threw images at him like a Rolodex.

Surprised, his gun finally came down as he intoned, "...Brea? **Aya Brea**?"

The echo of shock flitted over her face. She lowered hers too as he rose. They both kept the guns in their hands but not aimed at each other now. Slightly to the side of the other. She tilted her head at him, "Do you know me?"

Leon nodded, knitting his brows over his nose, "I hired you."

Her gun jerked up. His did too in answer. "..liar." She hissed it.

Curious now, Leon wondered, "Why would I lie about that?! What possible reason could I have?"

There was that flash again on her face. The pictures in her file hadn't done her justice, he thought off offhandedly, she was model gorgeous. It didn't matter, because he hadn't hired her for her face. However, it explained the arrogance and the moves she had. She'd been the best marksman he'd found in a long time. A sniper by trade who'd undergone rigorous training to be able to handle almost any kind of munition.

Her file hadn't mentioned she was incredible at hand to hand.

"Because you're not _you."_

What did that mean!? What did any of this mean?

"No? So, who I am?"

There was such sadness on her. Why? She told him, "An imposter."

"A what?"

She shouted it now and it echoed in the cold air, "A _FAKE_! A liar! A fraud! Who are you!?"

"I'm Leon Kennedy." Softly. He wasn't even angry now. He was fascinated by her emotions. She was shaking with something he couldn't name. Trying to soothe her, he said, "We met once, remember? In Raccoon City. I didn't think about you at that time. I wasn't-I'd just found out something...you know what? It doesn't matter. I'm Kennedy."

"No!" Her voice cracked, "No you're not. Not anymore." He was half convinced she was going to shoot him with that rampant grief streaking across her gorgeous face.

Annoyed, Leon told her, "Yeah? Maybe you're not who you say you are either. I don't know you -I'm supposed to take you at your word?"

From the shadows, a familiar voice told him, "Maybe not hers, but you can take mine. Lower the gun, my friend. Now...please."

Leon turned his head to find Kevin Ryman moving over the snow toward him with a bead on him from his gun. At his six with her pistol down but ready, Rebecca Chambers was with him. If someone had farted on him, he wouldn't have been more surprised.

Behind Aya, another face moved from the darkness. Shell shocked, Leon mused, "Bo?" Daniel "Bo" Dollis emerged with his gun steady to stand beside Aya.

"Boss - You wanna drop that nine before things get ugly here?"

Outnumbered, almost afraid because of what he didn't understand, Leon still hesitated. Rebecca was the one who cautioned, "It's alright, Leon. I promise. We're here to help you if you'll let us.."

There was a soft flutter of laughter. His gaze shifted to the long dark beside Aya's left shoulder. A shock of blonde hair accompanied a giggle. A small girl turned the corner and looked back over her shoulder at him. She let go of the balloon in her hand. The red, red, red vinyl floated toward the ceiling as she said, "_Listen...the music stops."_

_What the hell was happening to him?_

No answers. All questions. All horror and fear and regret and anger. Aya's bloody mouth haunted him.

Was he dead? Was he hallucinating? Was any of this real?

Leon told her, almost pleading, "I'm sorry. For hurting you. I didn't know. I-I've been here for so long. I don't know what's happening. T-there's this fire? - something, ugly, inside of me..."

Her angry face relaxed a little into lines of sympathy. He took a step toward her and Kevin instructed, low, "Don't."

"I won't hurt her."

"Don't." Kevin said it again, "Trust me."

"...alright." Leon stopped moving.

Aya finally filled the silence punctuated by their panting, "...Le-_sir_...what's the last thing you remember?"

Leon finally lowered his weapon and dropped it in the snow. He raised his hands up above his head like a perpetrator being arrested, "I had just finished resigning from the DSO. I'd just moved into my grand parents old place. I'd finalized your paperwork to join the BCU...I met you? I think we met...at the hospital? Was I right about that?

Aya nodded, feeling her heart shiver, "..yes, sir...I remember."

"I went home. I-" He trailed off and finally admitted, "I found the watch Adam gave me for my graduation from the Academy. I...I grieved. I had too much to drink. I fell asleep in a chair at my goddamn kitchen table...and I woke up in a cell."

Aya started to lower her gun again and readjusted it on his face. Bo took a pair of cuffs from his belt and tossed them into the snow. "Sorry as hell, boss, but I'm gonna need you to put those on."

Aya laughed, harshly, "If he's really Kennedy, it won't matter if he's cuffed."

Leon felt a little bit of pride when she spat it; he doubted she was trying to flatter him.

In a way, Leon understood the caution. He'd never killed someone who was technically on his team. No questions asked, Leon picked up the cuffs and bound his hands in front of him. "Ok? I'm me, I swear to god, I'm _me_."

What was that look on Aya's face? Pain? Laced with some kind of anger he didn't understand. He was sorry he'd hurt her. He didn't know what else to say, but he tried.

"You want to hit me again, Agent Brea? Will that help here?"

Aya said nothing. He could see her jaw flexing in the shadows. Offhandedly, Kevin remarked, "Anybody know how long until Quint gets the power grid up and running?"

Bo answered, "Fifteen minutes maybe."

Rebecca moved close to Leon and calmed him as she drew his left arm taut. She bound the bicep with a strap to search for a vein. Kevin, Aya, and Bo all kept those guns on him, "I have to take some blood to check."

"Check what?" He shook his head as she eased a needle into the bend of his arm. "What is this?"

Rebecca told him, gently, "Necessary. Wait a moment, ok? I'll tell you everything."

To the others, she spoke quietly, "Muscle tone is good. He's thinner than I'd like, but she might not have been providing him adequate care. I need to know how his vitals are."

She put the blood from his arm into a machine in her other hand and instructed, "Bo? Lower your weapon and use your Genesis for me, ok?"

Without a word, Bo holstered his gun and raised the machine that looked like a fat thermal gun. He scanned it. Aya still kept her pistol on his face. Kevin did too, no flinching. Leon thought: This was his _team. _He'd assembled them himself. What was this?

Rebecca's machine beeped. He watched her face light up. She looked at Kevin and nodded. Bo lowered the Genesis and said, "Heart rate is elevated at one ten, but he's afraid. His organs are all in good shape. He's sound, physically, for a twig."

Rebecca nodded and remarked, "And?"

Bo nodded, "Yeah. He's infected."

Surprised, Leon answered, almost desperately, "Wait! Wait! I'm not! Am I? How? I don't know. Maybe they shot me up with something."

Aya said, quietly, "You didn't need the Genesis to tell you that. I can see it in him."

Afraid, he demanded, "See _what_? Somebody start talking. The plagas? The pieces of it left? It's always been there -t-that's documented, ok? It's in my file."

Rebecca tried to soothe him, gently again, "...not exactly."

Kevin lowered his gun. Rebecca put her hand down to Leon. Bo tossed her the key to open his cuffs. "It's good to see you again, Leon. Let's get you somewhere quiet and we can talk."

He glanced between people. He didn't move a muscle. Curious, Rebecca looked over her shoulder to find Aya still holding that gun on him. In the tense silence, Kevin instructed, "Aya...it's him. Put it down."

Her hands trembled. Her eyes were glazed with emotion. Softly, she told them, "Because he's got the right what? Markers in his blood? That makes him Leon? Maybe it's the hair, right? It's blonde and pretty even with the beard. Somehow? The beard works on him too. The eyes are the same color, right? But it's not the same guy in them -it's not."

Confused, Leon glanced at Rebecca and back at Kevin. His gaze swung back to Aya, "I don't understand. Somebody start talking here."

Aya took a step forward. Bo put a hand on her wrists to stop her but she didn't lower her gun. She spat, "Some legend you are. You got drunk and let that bitch take you. And then? You hid out here like a coward while _he_ did your job."

Leon's brow knitted again, "Who?"

She told him, "She made him to spare you? Why? So you could slap girls around and act like a jack ass and grow a stupid ugly BEARD! You're a fake! A phony! A killer! And a bully!"

Leon had finally had enough of trying to apologize. She was a bitch, but it didn't say that in his reports on her either. Good thing about it? He'd worked with plenty of bitches in his time. They didn't have to like each other to work together her; it was enough being Mr. Sorry, "Speak English, sweetheart, I don't speak crazy."

"Call me sweetheart one more time...I _dare _you."

She tried to take another step. Bo finally grabbed her arm and wrested her weapon away. He pinned her back to his front as she spit, "Having the same face doesn't make you the real Leon Kennedy. He was twice the man you are!"

Bo held her, but his face was so angry as well. Leon thought: they were so mad at him. Why? He'd been in captivity! How was anything his fault!?

Leon returned, "There's only one me, honey, I promise you that! Whoever you're talking about? _That _was the imposter! And I didn't have a thing to do with whatever happened to him!"

Rebecca touched his shoulder and cautioned, "Easy - Ok? Take it easy."

Why!? She was a bitch to him. Why should he take it easy? He'd been a prisoner for god knew how long! Why was everyone fucking mad at him?

Aya shouted, "I should have kept kicking your ass before! I let your stupid face stop me. But I should have beat you to pieces for what you've done!"

Kevin finally barked, "Bo! Get her out of here! Take her upstairs. Now!"

She struggled as Bo tried to soothe her and she shouted, "Why you were here hitting girls, he was out there DYING so we could find you! You better be worth it, you smart ass _fraud_!"

Bo finally threw her over his shoulder to carry her away.

Kevin watched them go with a shake of his head. To Leon's surprise, Kevin looked sad and sympathetic as he turned back to them. In all the years he'd known him, Leon had never seen him take the side of a woman.

Aloud, Leon asked, "What? What the hell is she talking about? Somebody better give me some god damn answers here. Her report didn't say anything about being as crazy as she is beautiful. Seriously."

Leon reached for the hand Rebecca had down to him and she dropped it instead and turned away, shaking her head. Brows arched, Leon took Kevin's instead. "What?"

Rebecca scoffed and Kevin told him, "Take it easy. You have no idea what's happened here -that girl that just got carted away? She has good reasons to be mad. She was out of line taking it out on you, but you'll understand why. That girl..." He trailed off.

"What about her?"

Kevin hesitated so Rebecca finally spun back to him, "Sit down, Leon. Now."

Surprised, Leon glanced around. "Is it safe here?"

"It's safe. The castle is ours now. _She_ made sure we knew it." Rebecca said it with such heavy disdain, it surprised him.

Who?

More questions.

Sighing, Leon sat down on the pale red settee lining one cold wall. The snow had leaked in from the shattered ceiling above them. The castle wasn't exactly derelict, but it wasn't in great shape either. Whose was it?

Rebecca stepped over and slapped her medipack on the table beside him making him jump. Leon glanced at Kevin who was leaning on a column and lighting up a cigarette. Quietly, Leon asked, "You mad at me?"

Rebecca snapped her gaze at him as she tugged out supplies. The sarcastic bravado was long gone. He looked tired and pale. Somehow the beard suited him in a way you didn't expect. The longer hair fit as well, more Viking than _GQ_ model. It was swept back off a face they'd buried a year before.

She finally tried to harness the anger on Aya's behalf to answer him, "Not exactly, but tone down the attitude would you? It makes you look like a jack ass. Aya is the only reason you're alive."

More confusion layered over the endless amounts already in him, "Why? What does that mean?"

Kevin moved toward them in a swirl of smoke. "We don't have time for the long run down here so you're gonna get the cliff notes version." He took a small device from his pocket and tossed it. Leon caught it and glanced down at an iPhone. His gaze turned back up as Kevin added, "Start reading and listen up. You're not gonna fucking believe what I'm about to tell you."

Leon's gaze wandered over to Aya Brea at the stop of the long staircase with Bo. She just kept standing there staring down at him. There was an intensity on her that almost scared him. What did she know?

What didn't he?

There was only one way to find out. Leon took a deep breath as Rebecca moved in for another vial of blood and he quipped, "...hit me with your best shot...fire away."

After all, impossible crap was pretty much the entire basis of his world. He started reading, his gaze turned up in horror, and Rebecca acknowledged quietly, "Yeah. It's that bad."

And just like that, the lights came on. There was no more hiding in the dark of denial.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Ghost of You**

* * *

**Chapter Two:**

**All that Was and Wasn't and Never Would be Again**

* * *

**December 2015–**

**The Black Forest-**

**Germany**

* * *

The pain that came with acceptance -it was never-ending. It left Aya breathless as she stood outside the chamber door. She wanted, in part, to kick down the pain and find the renewed promise of a future without grief waiting beyond it. She knew what waited there wasn't redemptive, it couldn't be, but it just might feel like holding his body in her arms while the world stopped again.

It was worse than she could have ever imagined. They were here, trying to stop a madman, in a castle owned by a demon in a red dress that had manipulated and manhandled and murdered her world...and his.

She couldn't forget him.

He was a victim.

He wasn't the bad guy.

The face was right.

But the man?

All wrong.

Aya closed her eyes with her head tilted back. The castle was crumbling in places, but the west wing was carefully maintained. There was evidence of comfortable living. Someone had taken up a pretty easy residence here while they'd held Leon captive. She'd spared him.

She'd cloned him and spared him.

Why?

Did the demon in red...love him?

Aya heard him beyond the cold stone. He'd stopped fighting. He'd stopped yelling. Once the truth had finally washed out around him, he'd even relented into some kind of horror and grief over all of it. He'd retreated to the room they'd set up for him. They were all in separate rooms. It was a good place to make camp for locating Albert Wesker and taking him down.

It was.

It was full of ghosts in ways that had nothing to do with the soldiers and people that had once toured the halls a thousand years ago. It was full of the ghosts of man who was still alive. How could she grieve for a man who wasn't dead?

Burying him had nearly killed her.

Was she supposed to just go back to being his employee? Did anyone think she was capable of that? She'd finish this mission. She'd do that. But after? She was done. She was turning in her badge and leaving the BCU. She couldn't do it. She couldn't serve under him. Every time she saw him, she'd remember that for whatever reason - Ada Wong had spared him and replaced him with the man who'd stolen her heart.

She couldn't go back to being just coworkers.

She wasn't that magnanimous. She wasn't that capable of separating her feelings from the truth. It was too hard.

Aya turned and knocked on the door. She waited but he didn't answer so she eased open the hugely heavy door and peeked inside. The bedroom was empty. A nice fire had been laid and crackled prettily across the room. Firelight flickered in shadows and color as Aya eased into the room.

She called, to warn him, "L-" Shaking her head, she kept the distance she should have kept the moment she'd met him, "Sir? I'm in your room. I'm unarmed."

There.

So he knew she wasn't a threat.

The room itself was nicely decorated. Heavy brocade in green and gold and red. There was a splash of red tastefully laid in the rug and in tapestries on the walls. Red. Like the woman who'd owned the castle. Was this her bedroom? It was poetic irony in a way.

There were no personal effects anywhere. No photos. Nothing.

The waft of steam joined her in the warm air as she turned away from the fire. He emerged with a towel in his hand briskly rubbing off his groin. Apparently, he hadn't heard her after all.

He froze.

She froze.

She thought before she could control it, that he might have been slimmer but he was probably more finely cut than he'd been. There must have been little for him to do but work on his muscle tone. The tattoo that had bonded them was lovely in the low light on such sheer muscle.

She didn't mean to look, she didn't, she really, really didn't, but his dick caught her eye anyway. Just a flash. Just a moment. Just a little erect. From her? _FUCK. _She was nearly sick with the hard slap of thoughts in a short space of time.

He cleared his throat and shamed the hell out of her because, apparently, she'd been staring longer than she should have.

Aya spun away from him so quickly she felt dizzy. "Sir."

She heard him rustle and finally respond, "It's alright, Agent Brea, I'm decent. Let say first - that what happened down below, never should have occurred. My only excuse is being kept like an animal all this time made me a little...wild? Something."

Aya nodded but didn't turn, "I just wanted to apologize for my behavior before. I was out of line. I was angry and took the situation out of context. I was looking for someone to blame. You were innocent, but a convenient target."

Leon watched her stand there with her back all rigid. In fairness, he could have covered up sooner. But the way she'd been staring at his junk? He _liked _it. She was beautiful, he was hard up and had been for awhile, and she looked at him like food or something. He had the strangest urge to tease her about it, but let it go. He turned to the bed where Rebecca had laid out some clean clothes for him.

His. They were his clothes. The black t-shirt was scoop neck and graced with a Celtic knot. He'd bought it at a Breaking Benjamin concert a hundred years before. It was a personal favorite. It had been with him since the Academy.

Leon tugged it on and reached for the briefs. They were a little loose, but he'd expected that. The jeans that covered them up were easily belted with the black leather one lying on the comforter. They were old and fraying at the ankle and the left knee. The back right pocket had lost its life a long time ago, but they were nearly buttery soft with age. It was a great comfort to wear them again as well as the thick socks he poked on his feet.

As he did, he told her, "There's no need to apologize. I've been briefed on what happened. You were involved with my clone?"

Her eyes closed. Her lips rolled under for a moment of patience. She took a deep breath and turned toward him to find him sitting on the edge of the bed lacing on boots. After a handful of seconds, she told him, "No, sir. I was in love with him."

Leon paused with the left boot half laced up.

A tense moment past as he looked at her. In the firelight, she was almost angelic. Her hair shimmered like titian gold and copper. Her eyes reflected the flames in the shimmering blue. Beautiful. That picture in her file hadn't just failed to do her justice; it made her seem generic.

She wasn't. He could see what his other self had in her - she stirred your blood just looking at her. He hadn't touched a woman in how long? He was glad she'd flipped around when she'd found him naked because he'd been in that shower stroking one off thinking about sex and revenge. He'd pictured her face once or twice during the final stages of that somewhat perverted masturbatory experience.

He didn't think he needed a shrink to explain to him why he was mixing up anger with lust. Ada, after all, had always embodied both for him and the way Aya Brea looked at him? There was both in that blue gaze as well. He'd do well to remember she hated him when he was inclined to picture her face while he jerked herself empty.

He doubted she'd appreciate the gesture of it because she was looking at him like he'd murdered the man she'd loved - he had, in a strange way.

They held eyes until he reached back to ponytail his hair. "...I see."

"Do you?" Aya shook her head and turned back to the fireplace, "What did they tell you?"

He set his foot on the floor and put his elbows on his knees to grip his hands between them. "That there was some attraction between the plagas inside me and the organs of the transplant recipients."

Aya nodded, "Yes, sir. At first, it was purely situational."

When she failed to continue, he filled in the missing information, "It became personal."

She cleared her throat. She took two breaths. "Yes. Quickly. It was difficult to resist. There was a massive amount of draw."

He nodded, watching her back with sympathy, "I would imagine that wasn't easy."

Aya nodded again, "You-_he _made it difficult, yes. He was rather...irresistible...sir."

Leon smiled a little, "I see. Like bad jokes and painfully inappropriate flirtation do you?"

She knew he was trying to lighten the mood. She appreciated the effort. So she gave it her best shot as well and replied, "No, sir. The jokes were lame and ill-timed. Sometimes, they bordered on unfeasible. The punning...it was quite bad."

His mouth turned up into a sharp grin. They'd gotten off to a bad start, that was true, but it didn't mean they couldn't salvage some kind of working relationship here. Deadpan, he answered, "The pun is the highest form of humor, Agent Brea."

The soft scoff came out before she could stop it as she responded, "No, sir. The pun is the lowest. Somehow? He made it work."

Just like her butt did in those pants she was wearing. She was small framed but curvy. Her butt was the offspring of a perfect heart and a bubble.

She finally had gathered enough bravery to turn to face him. The little stubby ponytail he sported worked. It left enough shaggy hair around his face to be entirely the man she'd tried her best to get over in the last year. The beard was attractive enough, even if it wasn't her personal choice on him. It was more heavy five o'clock shadow than beard anyway. His arms in the t-shirt she'd brought for him were impressive.

She was betting he'd done thousands and thousands of push-ups.

In the quiet, she finally told him, "I'm going to do what I can to assist the team in bringing down Albert Wesker, sir. I owe it to myself and to all the women out there that he helped turn into mules for his own purposes. And I owe it to a man who'd been made like a pawn in a game he couldn't even begin to understand. I thought, in the beginning, he was a clone. I accused him of it. He seemed so sure, so positive..."

Aya trailed off. She trailed her eyes over the man on the bed. The _real _one. But what was real anyway? The man she'd loved...he was real. The grief over losing him was real. The love that nearly choked her when she was near him, it had been real as well. He might have been a clone, but his heart was real.

They said it was exactly like the man before her. If that was true, then he couldn't sit there without feeling a great amount of empathy for her. There was no way he could hear about all of the loss and the pain and the lies and not...hurt.

So, she added, "I don't know when they told him he wasn't you. Very, very close to the final battle with Eve, I think. There wasn't much time for processing...we should have had more time. I'd have tried like hell to talk him out of being noble."

Softly, Leon answered, "It wouldn't have worked."

Aya felt her breath hitch, "No? He loved me. We both knew that too. It happened maybe in that first moment. Maybe it happened the second he kissed me. I don't know. But it wasn't a lie. It was real."

Leon nodded, his face soft, "I believe you. And I can tell you this - if he was me? He'd have done exactly what he did to save you. That's what happens with love, Aya. It's worth dying for."

Her face collapsed a little. He shifted on the bed like he'd..what? Move to hug her?

She'd fall apart if he did.

So she lifted a hand to halt him. "Don't. I just need a second here."

"Alright."

Aya covered her face with her hands and took three deep breaths before she lowered them, "I don't know what anyone has told you about what happened in the Chrysler Building."

"It's limited. You were there. Can you give me a better picture?"

She nodded and turned back to the fire as she spoke. She told him about the fight. She told him about the training he'd taught her and the battle they'd waged in blood against a woman whose life he'd once saved as a girl. She talked about monsters that were both G-Virus and mitochondria awakened. She told him that something happened at one point as they made their way. They couldn't understand it. The monsters just...stopped attacking. She talked about Eve - the one in Sherry, the one in the other women like her, the one who'd begun in her sister that was maybe being hidden in Louisiana. Piers Nivans and a small group of BSAA agents were headed there to find her and any possible leads on Chris Redfield that might exist.

She talked about the trap. She'd liberated, as she called it, and advanced to a higher form of herself to protect him. They'd battled Sherry turned Eve and won. She'd killed Eve in a fit of rage when she'd nearly pulled Leon apart. He'd been hurt but his hands, through the pain, had turned into some kind of claws. He'd liberated - like Aya. They both knew he'd been turning, awakened into his other form. With Eve dead, the monsters began to collapse and die around them. He'd harnessed some kind of awesome power to immolate them all. They'd run as someone had set off the self destruct sequence in the building.

She told him she suspected it was Hyde Bohr covering up for the real horror. As they'd run for the nest that Eve had lain in the lowest part of the building, they'd found Albert Wesker fleeing with the twin of the thing they'd killed in Eve's belly. She'd tried to stop him. They ran for him with a fury that had no name. But he'd threatened to set off charges he'd placed around the entire city. He said he had a fail-safe to infect all of Raccoon with the T-Virus if they even tried.

With no choice, they'd watched him seal them into Eve's nest as he'd escaped through a narrow tunnel that turned into rubble as he ran.

Softly, she whispered, "We were trapped. The way we'd come was sealed with some kind of lock that only Eve's blood would open. The building was coming down. We could hear the charges on the highest levels going off. We both knew we were out of time."

Her hand moved to lean on the mantle. She gathered the strength to finish. "There was an altar under the nest she'd laid for her offspring. It was some kind of escape route, clearly. It had a puzzle that we both tried to decipher...it said _life for life, __only the blood of the awakened will offer the way. _There was no way we had enough blood to spare between the two of us...we'd have died of exsanguination before we filled up the waiting cradle."

Her eyes closed and two tears squeezed out as she added, "I don't know when he decided to do it. Maybe he'd always known he would. Maybe it was at that moment. Maybe it was me, being so stupid. Confessing things and shouting for help and panicking. Maybe it was my fault...I don't know. But he looked at me, as calm as I'd ever seen him, while I was trying to find any way I could to open the other door...and he told me he loved me. Did I know that? He loved me. He didn't regret being what he was, because however long he'd been Leon Kennedy...he'd got to spend that time with me."

She stared at the fire, "When I figured out what he was saying. I denied it. I told him it didn't matter. I didn't care if he wasn't the real one. I didn't give a shit. I never had. Almost from the moment, I met him. I tried to make him see that we could just...die there together. It wouldn't be so bad. It would be ok if we were together."

Aware that he was listening raptly, Aya finished her story, "He told me the real him was still out there. Find me, he said, you're the only one who can. There were so many reasons I had to live, he implored, didn't I know that? And he was already dead. He couldn't turn back the awakening. His arms had mutated. He was losing to the thing inside of him. Maybe...maybe Ada had known that too. Maybe she'd deliberately set it up so he'd turn and die and people would assume that you were gone. The battle would stop. The hunt for you would end. Maybe that was always her plan."

Aya shrugged and sighed, "I was holding on to him. I was begging him not to be stupid. We'd find a way to stop it. We'd find a way to cure it. He just...was so calm. He said something like...the only thing that had ever mattered was me. He was sorry it had taken him so long to know it. He was sorry we didn't get more time. But find him. Find the real him."

Her breath hitched and her hands bared down on the mantle, "I turned. I think I knew. We were out of time, the whole building was shaking. He just...used those claws to cut open his own chest. His blood, his heart...it filled up that cradle in the altar and spilled over. He was dead. The second it happened, I knew he was dead. I tried to revive him. I tried to heal him. I can...I could heal. We both knew that. But you can't heal the dead. The building stopped the self destruct -The silence was deafening -The damage was catastrophic but not complete...and I was alive."

She opened her eyes to stare into the flickering flames, "I was alive and he was gone. Just like that. I was dead with him, I think. In the beginning, I couldn't even feel anything. I was numb with grief...and then I buried him. I did what he wanted. I started looking for you. I don't think I really planned to be here to find you when the time came. Ada came to find me, she told me about this place...about you being here. She said I'd feel you when I was close."

Aya shook her head, her breath shaky, "She was right. I knew you were here. It was the same. Like with him. Exactly the same. I could feel you...and it's you, but it's not you. You're not him. It's not your fault -any of this -I feel so sorry for you. But you're not him...and I hate you for it."

When he still said nothing, she finished, "So that's it, sir. That's the story. That's the horror. There's more..but nows not the time for that. This is enough. It's enough. And it's why when this is over, I'm done. I can't work for you. I can't hardly look at you. I want to be bigger than that...but I can't. I'm sorry."

Her voice hitched as she said it again, almost pleading, "_I'm sorry, _but I _can't."_

Her hands came up to cover her face. It was time for her to go. She needed to le-

His fingers curled around her wrists. He turned her toward him and she thought, desperately, _don't don't don't_. But he didn't stop. He pulled her forward until she was pressed against him. His hands stacked over the back of her neck to hold her there, an old gesture of his, and so familiar it hurt as he said, "Don't be sorry and don't quit. Feel it, let it kill you, but don't quit. The rest of it? We'll figure it out -I promise."

He was the same man. The joking. The fighting. The remorse over hurting her. The kindness. He was the same man. She didn't want him to be the same man. She wanted him to be anyone else. Anyone.

Her body sagged against him. Her hands shifted to curl into his shirt and fist there. She shifted her nose to put it against his neck because she had to know if he smelled the same.

It broke her heart that he did...and he didn't. How could he simultaneously be the same man, and not be him at all?

She didn't cry, but she wanted to. It was nearly painful. She probably would have avoided the tears, hadn't she avoided them for over a year now? She might have gotten out of that room in safety, but he said, "...I can't bring him back to you...I wish to _god _I could...but I can help you avenge him...if you'll let me."

It was such a Leon thing to say.

Because she had to know, she made a small sound of pain. "...I'm sorry, sir."

"For what?"

Her face turned, her eyes were sealed shut so hard they ached, she felt her lips slide against his cheek. He had the opportunity to set her away. He had the chance to deny her.

But his face turned into that touch instead.

Their lips brushed, she made a noise that tried to break his goddamn heart, and he let her kiss him. Her breath hitched at the first press of her trembling lips. Their noses brushed. She pressed again with a tiny sob. Taking her cue, and the fact that he hadn't touched another person in so long he'd forgotten how it felt, he sank into her mouth.

Aya melted toward him. His hands slid up to tilt her face back and tangle in the braid she wore. He stopped letting her lead him and met the feel of her with his own need. She opened her mouth as if he'd asked so he could taste her.

Her mouth tasted like cherries.

His tasted like _Leon_.

She would have let him go sooner...but he'd kissed her back and she'd given up on hating him.

Aya's hands slid up his neck to cup his face and bring him away from her. Their mouths popped wetly. Her cheeks were wet with tears and she gasped, softly, "...I'm sorry, sir. I-that-...I'm sorry. That was stupid."

Hell. Stupid or not, he was glad she had. It was the first time he'd felt alive in a long, long time. He was sorry as he'd ever been about anything on Earth to know it tortured her. "...don't be. Please."

There was a heaviness in his groin that said his body was still his. Amazing how a kiss had the power to give you back yourself, and rob you of everything you'd fought so hard for in a single press of lips.

She rubbed their mouths together while he watched her with some kind of wonder until she let go of his face and gripped his shirt again to put her face against the cloth.

Softly, she whispered, "I could feel you here, waiting. It's not the same. It was so painful when I first met him. It's not painful anymore."

Leon held on for a long moment before he answered, "What does it feel like?"

"...like home. And I hate you for that." She finally lifted her head to look at him. He let of her neck to gently hold her arms and she added, "Do you feel anything when you look at me?"

She saw the struggle on him. He didn't want to answer her, but it wouldn't do any good to tell her the truth. She was hurting so badly. He didn't want to hurt her more by admitting he could feel her too. It wasn't sexual, not like she'd spoke of before. It was somehow more simple than that. As if she were wearing a tracking beacon and he was just in tune to her signal or something. It wasn't scary. He'd dealt with weird shit all his life it seemed, but he could sense something on her that felt familiar. If he told her that- would it wound her even more? He wanted to spare her from that.

So he told her, "...sympathy. Sorrow. I'm sorry for what happened to you. I wish I could change it. I can...sense you? Something. So I'm aware that were have some kind of connection."

He hesitated. She arched her brows, "...what is it?"

Leon shook his head a little, "There's a physical attraction, clearly, but I don't think it's dangerous like you said it was before. It just felt...nice."

"...I agree."

He scanned her face, "...how honest do you want me to be here?"

"Very. Please."

"I enjoyed kissing you. I would have enjoyed more if you'd invited it. You-" He hesitated, uncomfortable with bald honesty, but wanting to soothe her at the same time, "-I haven't been close to a woman in a long time...even before my captivity. I don't know what is _you _and what is just...denial."

Aya nodded, almost sadly, "...I understand, believe me...but nothing else? Emotionally?"

Fuck. He felt like a dude who kept on slapping her or something. He should lie? He shouldn't lie? He just wasn't a guy who lied. So...? Truth.

"...no...why do I feel bad for that?"

She smiled at him and stepped back. "Don't. I prefer it that way. It keeps me from comparing you and trying to see him in your face. It's a relief actually.."

Feeling guilty, he watched her move toward the door. She opened it, reached outside, and brought in a black case. She sit it by his door and said, "...I thought you might need a little piece of home to help you deal. I tried to learn it after he-after, but I can't. He was...he was just musical, I think. The piano, the guitar, the singing - but you know that. Of course, you do. It's all your stuff - it always was...anyway..."

His guitar.

She'd brought his guitar across the world for him.

Quietly, he told her, "Excalibur."

She glanced at him, "What?"

"That's its name. Excalibur."

Her eyes glazed as she answered, "...the sword of heroes. Naturally." Aya shook her head, "It's good to have you back, sir. Thank you for listening to me. I'm sorry I ruined your first night of freedom."

As she went to leave, he told her, "You didn't. I...I haven't talked with anyone in a long time."

She hesitated. Her eyes scanned his face. She got the impression he wanted her to stay, but could she? If she stayed, it might kill her.

The truth was it was getting easier by the minute to look at him and know he wasn't the same man. He was, but he wasn't. Not really. He didn't love her. He didn't spend weeks trying to avoid touching her. He didn't lay on her in the night and steal her soul.

It was his face. It was his DNA.

But it wasn't his heart.

This was just Leon S. Kennedy- the former right hand of the president. The hero of Raccoon City. Savior of the President's daughter. Slayer of ganados and B.O.W.S. The director of the BCU. The man whose task force she'd clamored to join like an eager recruit.

He wasn't the love she'd lost.

He was just wearing his face.

Sadly, the face was still fucking gorgeous, and her body was very aware of what it looked like when he was inside of her. He managed to look now like a little boy who just wanted a friend. He was her boss, for the time being, and not her lover. She could do this. She could work with him. She could be professional. Before that day that she'd met him and lost her mind, she'd always been professional.

She could be Aya and stop being the woman who'd loved and lost him. She could do that. She could.

How man times did she repeat that phrase in the last few minutes? She was, officially, the little engine that could. She'd make it. She'd make it. She'd _make _it.

Aya inhaled a deep breath, "...I should tell you about everything else. All of it. You read the report...but would you like to hear my accounting of it?"

Eager for the company, Leon nodded, "Please...and the sir? You can drop it."

"It's better if I use it, sir -for the distance." She shifted to the chair and let him sit on the bed. "...I should start with the first."

"The first what?"

"The first Eve...you need to know all of it to fight them."

"Them?"

"...yes. They aren't just one...now? We think they might be legion...and apparently you're the key to stop them."

Great. The carousel just kept right on turning in a carnival of crap. He was _always _the guy who found himself standing between the Four Horsemen and Hell. How did he avoid the same road his clone had taken?

How did he avoid becoming the thing they hunted?

What the hell were they chasing here?

No answers. No help. Just him, this girl who'd loved his clone, and a small group of handpicked fighters looking for a gateway to the truth. He'd been trapped for too long, he was finally free - it was time to show them what the real Leon Kennedy could do.

He held her gaze without flinching and instructed, "Tell me everything and let's make sure we burn down their Garden of Eden. They might have thought I was their Adam, turns out? I'm the snake after all."

Aya considered her options - run or stay here and try her best to remember he was her boss. He was her _boss. _He was still a legend for a reason. Once, the man with his face had died to save her. He'd died, she'd been the girl who got the legend killed...maybe she repaid that sacrifice by making sure the real one lived up to his name.

So, she told him quietly, "...first things first...get some scissors."

His brows winged up and she instructed, "Let's get rid of that mop on your head and make you feel a little more like you."

His mouth twitched as he nodded.

First the hair, then the beard, then her heart. It was time to cut away the pieces of him that didn't belong. It was time to find Aya Brea under the ghost of Leon Kennedy.


	3. Chapter 3

**The Ghost of You**

* * *

**Chapter Three:**

**The Cradle of Civilization**

* * *

**December 2015–**

**The Black Forest-**

**Germany**

* * *

She awoke to the crackling fire. On her side, she was staring at the dying flames. The room was warm and cozy. Against her back, so was he.

They'd talked about everything. That part of him was exactly the same, he was a man who needed to verbalize things that came to mind. He tossed ideas about Wesker and his whereabouts. He wasn't ready yet to discuss the Eves. He seemed to think that needed the team for proper dissection, but he was a man with a brain like nothing she'd ever known. He had ideas on everything.

If she'd met him without the goddamn lull of greed on them both, she'd have seen the man whose lectures had guided her to sleep many times over. He was brilliant with analysis and picking apart tiny details. He spoke about minute links that she'd been blinded by blood and desire and missed the first time she'd known him. This Leon...this version of him? The real one? This one...he was a man who understood an objective and didn't care about the icky sticky sex stuff enough to let it side track him. He tossed around theories about the fount of it all. He tossed around musings regarding the science and the surrender of the human condition to the primal urges of the body's most basic cellular response. He tossed ideas about the twin of the ultimate being and what age it might be now.

She didn't tell him about the twins...their twins?

Leon's twins.

_His _twins.

They were, biologically. They were his. How did you tell someone that? Y_ou didn't fuck me, but I had your babies._ It sounded insane to her own ears.

She liked listening to him talk. She liked the enthusiasm on him and the intelligence. She liked knowing he was processing every single syllable she uttered. He was a machine, in his own right, that simply absorbed and connected the dots she'd been blind to. She wanted to learn from him. She wanted to work with him.

She wanted to stop loving his ghost. Was it possible to do both? It was harder for her than it would ever be for him. She could still smell him on her skin when she closed her eyes.

Quietly, Aya rolled over to look at him. He was sound asleep on his back. He'd somehow fallen asleep with an arm over her hips. After a moment of thinking about it, Aya discovered he'd moved her at some point.

He'd put her behind him on the bed and away from the door into the bedroom.

She blinked, considering. Had he meant to protect her like that? Most likely - it was something he'd done all the time before.

Excalibur was sitting on the floor beside the bed. He'd played it while they talked as if touching it had given him some measure of comfort. He'd strummed his guitar while they discussed his missing time. A little over two years of his life he'd never get back - taken from him by a woman he'd once thought, maybe, that he'd...what? Loved?

It was more complicated than that. The betrayal on him when he spoke about Ada Wong almost hurt Aya physically. Why? _He wasn't the man she loved. _She had to keep saying it. She had to keep reminding herself because she almost forgot when he'd discovered the amount of time he'd been in captivity.

He'd leaned forward and put his face in his hands. He'd cursed softly into his palms like he'd suffocate on the horror if he didn't. Aya, taking pity, had retrieved a glass of vodka from the table where he'd left it. There was a full bar stocked with various liquor behind the table. He'd helped himself, clearly, to assuage the torture of knowing he'd been here, an effective eunuch, while the world had rushed to use his doppelganger to destroy it.

He was innocent - but he reacted like a man who was buried to the eyes in guilt. He took it on as if he'd been responsible. It was just...who he was.

Aya had crouched in front of him and pressed the drink into his hands when he drew them down from his face. "Here. Liquid courage."

Leon had laughed, though it was hollow, "...fuck."

Aya had laughed in return, "Yep. That about covers it."

He'd tossed back the vodka with the hiss and speed of a man who knew how to drink. He could have asked her to stop talking, but he'd picked up his guitar and encouraged, "...keep going. Tell me everything."

When she got to the romance portion of their relationship, Aya paused. She didn't want to dishonor one man by downplaying to the other...but she didn't want to heap guilt on top of his already endless regret. So? She'd simply said, "When it was clear that we were...involved...we allowed ourselves the briefest amount of...intimacy."

The hesitance in her voice had his brows lifting, "Good, was it?"

Keeping her face as blank as she could, Aya had returned, "It was adequate, sir."

And she'd made him laugh. She could see that he was grateful for it as he told her, "Touche. I was always better at kicking ass than getting it."

Just like that - he'd broken the tension somehow. She'd finally sat down in the chair across from him and just let herself relax, "...you did alright, sir. You made it clear that you weren't...the type to leave a partner hanging."

The amusement had been ripe between them as his twinkling eyes had held hers, "Yeah? I'm usually more of a solo guy, so I'm glad I stepped up."

There was no way to not like him. It was the same infuriatingly disarming charm that had hooked her in the first place. She'd felt her mouth tilt up into a grin as she'd replied, "Ah...well you had a clear understanding of teamwork, sir. We played well together."

If she were blind, she'd still be able to recognize the look he gave her. Sheer, simple, undisguised interest. He liked her. She could smell it on him. She could...what? Sense it on him. He was looking at her like he'd like to see her naked.

It was, somehow, harmless like it had never been before. His face was still intoxicating, there was no getting around that, but there was something almost sweet in the way he looked at her. It wasn't heavy with painful need like the first time she'd met...him. Him? Shit. It was too confusing. It was, what she'd almost craved with him back in Raccoon City, a simple state of man and a woman meeting, clicking, and looking.

In this case, he was, literally, her boss. So there was no risk of her touching him like that. It was safe here, for the first time since she'd met...him? Him. It was him. It might have been another body, but it was him. The more he talked, the more he was the same. He had a clear cut idea of right and wrong. He had a vivid feeling of professionalism. He was dedicated and driven and loyal.

His gaze liked her face, it was clearly written on him, but without the power of a greater force pushing them - it was utterly mute.

The silence between them had drug out while they stared at each other until she'd cleared her throat and risen from the chair again, "Right. Should I tell you about the mutations?"

A quick sidestep into discussing the viral parameters of the things they faced put the brakes on any kind of emotional scene. When they'd finally discussed what he'd become before he died, he'd been lying on his back on the bed looking at the ceiling. He'd said nothing, but she could see the gears in his head-turning. He'd nodded and rubbed his palms together like he was digesting it all.

They both understood that what had liberated in him was still there. It was there. It was, at the moment, dormant. Why? Did what was in her have to...awaken him? Or did he need an "Eve" to free him and start his turning? Ada had clearly imprisoned him to protect him from what his clone had faced.

It had never been clear before what had dropped the door on his doppelganger. She was afraid that her being close to him would do it, but so far? It was benign. Just a meeting of two people who'd never met...but somehow had.

She shifted now toward him a little. He was sleeping, so it was harmless, but she'd dreamed of him the night before as well. The smell of him, the taste of him, the feeling of him between her legs and taking her so hard she'd nearly wept with want. It was pretty simple -she'd mourned him, she _missed _him, she loved him.

Logic told her she'd buried the man she loved. She knew that. She did. She needed to separate from him now before she forgot and opened herself to pain. He didn't love her. This man? It was Kennedy, she was starting to believe he was exactly like the man she'd loved, but he wasn't hers.

She didn't want to muddy things up by getting involved with him again. It was stupid. It was dangerous, and now the twins were involved. She wanted them to know him - when the time was right and if he wanted- but she didn't want to pressure him.

Aya needed to go over him to get out the door. She considered how best to do that. He needed his rest, she didn't want to wake him, but she couldn't just stay there staring at him all day either.

Well, she _could _but what good would it do?

She roamed her eyes down his body. The shirt he wore was wrinkled up around his navel. As he breathed, the little happy trail below his belly button rose and fell. She wanted to touch it and see if it was soft.

Stupid.

Aya shifted to her knees. She started to carefully swing her leg over him as slowly as possible. She planted her knee and lifted her other leg, rotating her hips to plant her feet on the floor.

And he managed to wake up with her straddling him.

Well...so much for avoiding the awkward morning conversation.

Aya started to apologize and instead found herself staring at him. He was, it seemed, quite happy to be there. He didn't move her off. He didn't move a muscle. Beneath her, Leon thought - _would it do more harm than good to just indulge in it?_

He'd gone to bed with all kinds of wrong women in his life. He wasn't the wisest man on Earth when it came to picking partners. This one made him feel for her. She'd cried and let him hold her. She'd looked at him like she loved him... as if she hated him... like she wanted him. It was heady.

It really was.

His hand shifted and caught the bottom of her shirt. She let him ease it up her belly. She let him skim his palm up her bare skin. She was so skin hungry for him that she was nearly frozen there watching him.

His left hand curled around her ribs and up her back. He just...kinda tugged...not even that really. He just offered it. She leaned down over him as if he'd invited her. Her hands gathered up his shirt and mirrored him, they shifted against his chest and felt the slow, steady, wonderful beat of his heart.

Softly, Aya whispered, "I'm gonna kiss you again. I'm sorry, I really am, you should ask me to leave."

Instead, he tilted his face up to her. He answered, gruffly, "I don't want to make this harder for you, Aya, but I haven't touched a woman in so long. This kinda thing can mean nothing to me...that's just the truth. Tell me what you want here. I don't want to hurt you."

He was the same man. He just was. What was under the skin was the same. It just wasn't the man who'd loved her, but she couldn't do this again. She couldn't work beside him tempest-tossed with guilt over wishing he was the same Leon who'd been hers - for just a moment- before she'd lost him.

She needed to purge that and be done with it. Besides - she'd tied her tubes after the twins. She couldn't get pregnant, not anymore. It was the first time she really considered fucking him just to purge herself of him.

Testing him, she gripped his wrists and put them above his head, pinning his arms there. He didn't panic, he didn't fight back, because he was just a man with a willing woman atop him. He wasn't a victim. He hadn't lost anything.

Her? She'd lost everything.

The anger hit the need and made her eyes fill with tears. She covered it up by kissing him. Beneath her, Leon was fully aware of her desperation. She kissed him as if she'd eat him.

She wasn't gentle. She held him down and devoured his mouth. Forgetting the pain on her, he let her. He opened his mouth and let her lay claim to it. She rolled her hips, dry humping him where he lay. He let her do that too.

She seemed almost manic about it. Angry in a way that he tried so hard to understand, but couldn't. He'd never loved a woman and lost her like that. He couldn't even fathom the pain of it.

When she grabbed for his zipper, Leon finally broke his mouth away to murmur hoarsely, "Aya...wait."

Her eyes opened on his face. _His _face. The right face; the wrong man. Her belly clenched with pain. In some ways, the right man after all, because his expression was soft with sympathy.

Quietly, he soothed, "This is wasn't you want. You can't fuck me to forget him. It doesn't work that way."

Her expression crumpled. With desperation almost, she answered, "I don't want to hurt anymore."

His mouth tilted, gently, into a smile, "You don't have much choice there. That's part of grieving, I think. I can help you, but not like this. This won't help."

Her laugh was dry and shaky, "No? Sex works to make the pain stop."

Leon shook his head, "No. It just glosses over it for awhile. Like alcohol. It doesn't make it stop."

She blinked at him. She tilted her head. Finally, he added, "Yeah. I do that. I hide it under the booze. Trust me, it won't stop you from missing him. It'll just make it worse."

With feeling, she confessed, "I _hate _that you look like him. I hate even more that you act like him. I don't want to be around you anymore. It's so confusing. I want to, I don't want to - I want to work with you, _for _you...but can I? I don't know."

So that was probably the first woman in his life to say that to him. He tried to be understanding, really, because he knew it was him - it was the grief she wore like a cloak, but he couldn't stop the sting of rejection from hurting his pride. He didn't even like himself for feeling it. But there it was.

So, he responded,"You don't have to worry about me trying to get close to you. I'm your coworker. Just another agent. If it helps to draw that line, I'll stay on my side of it. You said before...you two had no choice. We have plenty of one here. I don't generally screw women I work with. If we'd met under the usual circumstances, I can tell you that I'm attracted enough to you that I might have broken that code and pursued you...but not like this. It's a mess, Aya, and a bigger one waiting. There's something horrid hanging around us like shadows...we need to stop that, now, before we worry about whatever this is. How we work together, that's gonna be your choice.

How the world had changed, she thought madly, when she'd been the one to let him take from her anything he needed once upon a time. And now she was here, above him, demanding he do the same. The echo of pain was nearly cloying.

Curious, she demanded, "And if I wanna fuck now? Right now? What then?"

His brow arched. He almost looked amused. He shrugged a shoulder, "I can do that. I can mount you like a prize pony until you slobber all over the place, but it won't mean I love you. I'm not a man who loves a woman easily. I did, I had a kinda perverted version of a love affair with the woman who made sure I was a prisoner for the last year of my life...I have terrible taste in women. So one who was in love with my clone and just wants to use me in some skewed idea of revenge? Why not? Entirely my kind of girl. Totally, utterly unattainable sounds about right."

Oh, he was charming. His utter candor, his complete self-awareness, his nonchalance that he used to make her find humor in the horror of wanting to bang the man who wore the face of the one she'd loved - all of that made him so completely easy to resist. Somehow, his being so baldly honest and lacing it with good-natured amusement killed the urge to stick her hand in his pants...and that was the most Leon thing of all.

She was starting to realize there were so many sides to the man she'd loved but never had the time to know. She had her chance, now, to meet the man she'd spent too long trying to fuck, and not long enough trying to learn. He had things to teach her. He had truths in him that she wanted. He had humor and heart and drive. That was why he was the best in the business. It was why they'd wanted him back. It was why she needed to remind them both she was just his subordinate, and not the mother of his children.

The moment lingered. She finally let go of his wrist as her mouth twitched on a smile. "...you think you're clever."

He winked at her. "I've been known to be...I've also been known to butcher a decent amount of dialogue trying to lighten the mood. So, it's good I haven't totally lost my touch."

She swung her leg off the bed and rose to standing. He'd held her in the shower to let her grieve once. He'd offered to fuck her now and quipped about his bad taste in women to do the same. Each piece of him blended more and more with the man she'd known. At what point would she stop seeing them as two men and start seeing them as sides of the same one?

As she headed to the door, she wondered, "You're awfully calm for someone who's been in captivity all this time."

He sat up on the bed and shrugged, "The things I've seen...if I panicked every time I found myself in an impossible situation, I'd be dead by now."

It was the wrong thing to say. The second he said it, he wanted it back. She winced like he'd struck her as he tried to offer his _mea culpa_, "...see? Butchering that dialogue already. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I know you didn't mean it that way." She glanced back at him, "I have things to tell you, but not now. Now I need you to just...be you and do what you do."

"...what do I do?"

She smiled sadly as she opened the door, "...you save the world. It happens, when you're the hero. Come on down for breakfast...sir."

He winced as she shut the door. They were back to sir. She'd just attempted to ride him into the mattress...but it was still sir. Softly, he laughed and shook his head as he rose, "...women."

* * *

Down in the south solar room, a great amount of natural light made the somewhat dreary castle feel welcoming. Someone had laid a nice fire and most of his team had gathered around the table to look at maps and blueprints. Rebecca was pouring coffee in big chalices.

When Leon picked his up, he noticed it was heavy pewter and inscribed with some kind of butterfly being pursued by a dragon. Naturally, it was Ada's castle. Why wouldn't it have her signature designs around it? She'd always been part mythical monster, part elusive delicate creature.

Everyone was still cuddled into heavy coats as they moved. The castle was drafty and chilly. The fire helped, but it didn't make it go away completely.

His faded bomber jacket in soft camel brown was draped over one of the backs of the chairs. The sherpa lining was old and warm and insulating. Someone had brought his clothes and his jacket and his guitar.

He picked up the jacket and slid his arms into, zipping it up and letting the heavy fur of the collar snuggle his face in warmth. His gaze drifted to Aya's profile as she pointed out points on the map and battled over "perimeters" with Kevin. The pretty lavender color of her poofy coat suited her. The faux fur that tickled around her hood on her back was a nice chocolate brown.

Beside her, Bo looked bored. He was picking his teeth with his pocket knife. The heavy black coat he wore was left open at the collar. Apparently, Bo didn't get cold like the rest of them.

Kevin continued to be Kevin in a scarred up leather bomber jacket over a hoodie in pale green. He had a sock hat on his wild hair and three days growth of a beard on his unshaven cheeks. The fingerless gloves he wore allowed him to fire his gun even when it was colder than a well digger's ass.

The good news was, it wasn't any colder there in the forest than it had been in New York. Once you'd survived a few Manhattan winters, you were officially an islander. So the chill could be handled with aplomb.

Leon stepped up to the table, "Start filling me in on the fighting."

Rebecca, in a military-style heavy jacket with a pretty pink scarf looped around her neck, spoke first, "The information we have is limited, Leon. We know that Wesker is likely close by. We know he escaped with the Ultimate Being with the idea of coming this way to.._possibly _locate you. We're not exactly sure he's aware you had a clone. What we got from Ada visiting Aya was limited. This is what she left."

He picked up the file she slid across the table toward him. It was him, clearly, in captivity. Pictures, information, shots of him to prove he was, according to the report, "_thriving". _Leon shook his head and dropped the file.

"Nothing relevant there to anything."

"No. Mostly, we think it was just so she could be sure you were safe."

Aya gave him a cool glance and added, "Whatever she was doing, she did it all to protect you."

There was a definite undercurrent of resentment there. He arched a brow at her, "Do we have an idea to why? Putting aside my stellar skills in the sack, I somehow doubt she was preserving my poor person out of some misdirected notion of love. If she'd wanted that, she'd have come after it years ago. So I must have some part to play with her."

Aya scoffed, softly, "Don't brush off the personal side of it, sir. Her feelings for you confuse even her, I think. She wants you to serve some function, absolutely, but she panicked and hid you because she cares for you. She knew sending us to find you would sever any emotional attachment you feel toward her. If she was playing your emotions, she just lost that card by setting you free."

Kevin, clearing his throat, injected, "Right. Bitches be trippin, clearly. So you don't fuck her anymore, how sad for her, but the bigger picture is what matters here. What's your purpose? We know that thing in you is dangerous -it's what everyone in New York wanted to ride your balls for. The question is...how do we weaponize it, this time, without risking you?"

Shaking his head, Leon remarked, "How should I know? The damn thing was innocuous since Spain. It was mostly like having too many smokes and making it hard to breathe sometimes. There was no indication that it would be a weapon of any kind. I don't even understand how it was missed on physical exam when I returned."

Bo laughed, "How else? Your fuckin corrupt as all hell boss buried the truth. He wanted you infected. Everybody wants you infected. Why? I mean - you alright and all, but you skinny as fuck and twice as ugly. Why all them women want your crooked ass dick up in them is a mystery."

Kevin snorted. Leon rolled his eyes. Rebecca chuckled.

And Aya? She said, "In fairness, it's not crooked...and it's fairly clearly above average."

Everybody went wide-eyed. She was still scanning the map on the table. She didn't blush. She didn't even blink. She'd just tossed that out there like a grenade.

Finally, Kevin snorted out a laugh, "Of course it is. You get all the looks and the big dick. Somebody explain the fairness of nature to me."

Chortling, Bo returned, "Mother Nature is a bitch -and bitches? They love him."

Leon, grateful for the crack in the tension with all the joking, returned, "Please. She's being kind. It's not that big."

Rebecca muttered, "I've done your physical exams, my friend. Even I know you're lying."

It felt really good to laugh. He couldn't remember the last time he had. He chuckled and turned the map toward him with a snort. "Focus people. Let's forget about my dick here and start talking about what else we know."

Nodding, Kevin tapped the map. "The only hint Ada dropped was west. That could be anywhere."

Shaking her head, Aya added, "Not exactly. She said look west and find the cradle of civilization."

Snapping his eyes up from the map, Leon tilted his head. "Those words exactly?"

Aya nodded.

In a flurry of movements, Leon grabbed the second map beside them. It was a clear indicator of the terrain. It worked like a film over the bottom one. As he studied it, Aya watched the intelligence on his face.

Not just a pretty face, a fucking smart one.

He reached up to scratch the back of his scalp and Rebecca commented, "You didn't like the long hair?"

He shrugged and his eyes volleyed over the papers on the table. "It was more Thor than Kennedy...Listen- I need...I need an older map. Anyone have an older one?"

Bo wondered, "Like from before the USSR disbanding?"

He shook his head, "No...no. Older."

When everyone looked confused, he explained, "Before it was Germany, it was called Germania. It really came to importance with Charlemagne around eight hundred A.D. or so."

Again, blank blinking, so he took a frustrated breath and went on, "Charlemagne was the first Holy Roman Emperor. What we know now, started with his turning the West into his empire. He fostered his organized religion on the peoples he conquered. He kept the catholic faith alive and converted the Saxons to Christianity. In his way, he was considered a man who brought education and civility to the people."

Finally, Aya answered, "Oh my god...the cradle of civilization?"

"Exactly. Forget Mesopotamia, that's too obvious. The Byzantines were still keeping the roman empire alive in the east. This is what she means. She means here - the cradle _here. _He didn't bring about the first complex urban areas...but he educated and reformed it. He brought faith to the people, by his definition anyway, arguments against organized religion aside...this is what she meant. West of here...I need to know what was west of here around eight hundred A.D."

Everyone started digging around for maps. Leon snatched a wedge of toast off a plate and stuffed it in his mouth, chewing as he flipped papers. With a small sound of excitement, he heard Aya call out from another room.

"In here! Leon!"

So much for sir. Apparently, when excited, she forget to have a stick up her ass about him. He munched on the wedge and hurried through the archway into the sunny inner chamber. It was graced with a big plush couch in fine dark red leather...and a big fat globe.

Aya was turning the globe as he hurried toward her, "Look here -and here -and here." She gestured to places on the map, "...if you imagine a line between them- it creates a cradle of sorts...for _this."_

There it was - teeny tiny, nearly lost in the faded North Sea. It was nothing really; a little blotch that was, it seemed, an unnamed island. Somehow it never failed that the answers were hidden away where no one could find them.

And they had to risk everything to try.

Their civilization just might depend on it.

It was time to talk about the beginning.

It was time to talk about Eve and find the link to the women waiting a world away with her blood in them. She was in the cradle, he could _feel it. _But why? What did it mean that he could feel the answers there and was missing the link that Aya spoke so strongly about to his clone?

If he went there...would he succumb to the same fate as his clone?

If he didn't, would they ever have the answers to the questions that still lingered in the air like ghosts?

He turned to see his reflection in a frosty window beyond the room where he stood. His face, his determination, his dogged drive to protect- it was something you could copy, but never really clone. He was the only one left.

He was the only one who could stop it.

To do that, he had to go back the dawning of it all. It was time to talk about the mitochondria and the women who just might have the fate of the world in their bodies.


End file.
